Where would we be without a mind like this? The genius that is Boris Johnson. The man who has done more for this country than all other politicians of his generation. Never mind that most of it has been for the worse. Let’s not bother ourselves with inconvenient details.
Instead let’s focus on the greater truth. That, in Boris, we have had a prime minister of startling insight. A man who has thought about the obesity crisis for all of 10 seconds and decided the blame lies with the Church of England. Even more unbelievably, it’s an opinion for which he doesn’t seemed to have charged. Boris will be devastated when he realises he could have got £10k from the Daily Mail for it.
Here’s how the great brain works. Boris was being interviewed by the food writer Henry Dimbleby and public health expert Dolly van Tulleken when he was worried that both had dozed off. For a narcissistic sociopath like Johnson the greatest crime is to be boring; for his words to go unreported. So he started ad-libbing. Anything to get their attention.
Bluh … Blah … Bluh … Boris cast his mind back to when he was young. “When I was a kid, we were all out playing in the streets the whole time,” he said. “You don’t see that with kids nowadays … Now they are all fatsos. And I’d be shot for saying they’re fatsos, but that’s the truth.” It takes one to know one. After all, Boris is prime fatso material. Bathroom scales live in terror of him standing on them. “Get off, you fat bastard,” they sob. “You’re going to break me.”
Boris was just getting started. Back in the 1960s, children were running around a lot, drinking too much Tizer and munching Curly Wurlys and dog shit. I was alive then and don’t remember the craze for dog shit. But Boris said it so it must be true.
Now we get to the synaptic leap of which only Bozza is capable. Kids weren’t thinner back then because they ate less processed food and exercised more. It was because they were spiritually nourished by the teachings of the Church of England. God turned the sweets, soft drinks and dog shit into negative calories. The children got all they needed by going to church and studying the Bible.
It was all quite mad. The modern-day church – especially the former archbishop of Canterbury – was too busy scaring children away with talk of paedophiles. Mmm. Arguably. Justin Welby didn’t do nearly enough to warn of paedos. Starting with the C of E itself. So the poor kiddies had nothing to do but stuff themselves to death while hunched over their computers.
The evidence for all this seems to have been spurred by his recent attendance at a church service. Presumably a Catholic one. Because just a few years ago he went to all that trouble to have his previous marriages annulled – they never really happened – so that he could marry Carrie in Westminster Cathedral. Boris clearly favours a religion where you can rewrite reality. So much so that the person to blame for there only being 10 other people in the congregation was the Church of England.
Predictably the service didn’t meet Johnson’s high standards. “It was all about how rich men can’t go through the eye of a needle, all that sort of rot,” he said. In other words, it was a profoundly Christian message. Though obviously one with which Boris disagrees. Can’t see him donating a couple of the millions he has earned since being forced to resign to charity. There again, I’m sure there’s plenty of other doctrine he finds tricky. Not lying. Not committing adultery. Just for starters.
His core demand was that the church should just tell people not to be so bloody fat. That was it. Happy fucking Christmas, everyone. The fat man wants you to be thinner. We’d quite like the fat man to remain quiet for a bit. You only remember how much you’ve appreciated the comparative silence when he starts talking again. He inspires a momentary panic. Is it me losing my mind? Or him? Don’t worry. It’s Boris.
Curiously, the government has reached a rather different conclusion from Johnson. It reckons there are other factors at play in why the number of people out of work rose during the pandemic and has not fallen since.
The new work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, came to the Commons to give a statement on her new Get Britain Working white paper. It all sounded promising, but these things always do until it turns out they have made no difference. A bit of stick – remove benefits from the idle, and the fat – and lots of carrot. The healthy option. A more personal service from improved jobcentres, and better physical and mental health provision.
The problem is that the previous Tory government had any number of variations of the same theme and things have only got worse. Maybe we Brits are a bit different to other countries and don’t really get that excited about our work.
Still, Kendall has to look as if she’s doing something. She’s even promised some lucky job-seekers some work experience with the Premier League, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Channel 4. Look at it this way. No one could do a worse job of VAR and financial fair play than the Premier League, so give some teenagers a shot. And if you end up at Channel 4 you could find yourself in a reality show about a group of out-of-work teenagers hanging around at a TV station.
No trouble finding work if you end up at the RSC. The Tory party is desperate for actors to fill the shadow cabinet. The current intake is breathtakingly poor. Take Helen Whately, Kendall’s opposite number. Her reply was so feeble you could sense the embarrassment of the five or so Tory backbenchers who were in the Commons. We’re told Whately is not dim. So she must just act that way. It’s about time the opposition realised they were better off opposing the government rather than themselves.
A year in Westminster: John Crace, Marina Hyde and Pippa Crerar
On Tuesday 3 December, join Crace, Hyde and Crerar as they look back at a political year like no other, live at the Barbican in London and livestreamed globally.
Book tickets here or at guardian.live
